PETRÓLEO BRASILEIRO S/A  (PETROBRAS), a Brazilian international energy company has announced that it has developed, and is testing, a new type of biofuel. Known as H-Bio, the new fuel is an extremely high-quality diesel made from mineral diesel and vegetable oil, and its development is the result of close cooperation between Brazilian agribusiness and the petroleum industry.

H-Bio is a refining process that utilizes vegetable oils as an input, in order to obtain diesel oil, and involves the hydrogenation of a blend of vegetable oils. This technology has been developed by the Petrobras Research Center over the last eighteen months. Recent industrial tests, conducted at the Gabriel Passos Refinery (Regap), confirm the technical feasibility of the process, and a patent application has already been ubmitted to the INPI (National Institute of Industrial Property).

According to the company, the chief benefits of this new industrial process are that it:
• allows the use of vegetable oils from a variety of sources;
• doesn’t produce waste requiring special disposal;
• produces a higher quality of diesel oil;
• complements the biomass usage program in the country’s energy framework, yielding
environmental benefits and promoting social inclusion.
• introduces flexibility in the load composition for the Hydrogenation Unit and optimizes the utilization
of diesel oil fractions at the refinery;
• offers the prospect of minimal vehicle and lab testing, since the final product – diesel oil – is already used by the Brazilian vehicle fleet;

• requires only normal handling and storage.

It is important to note that the new process does not compete with the refining of oil to obtain diesel oil, nor with the biodiesel program, as these are all complementary initiatives, aimed at increasing the country’s supply of diesel oil.

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